Tensions in the 1850s

The Slave Economy

• Cotton is King
• Cotton was one of the major crops being produced in the Southern states. However, cotton was a labor intensive crop.
• Many plantation owners were reducing the number of people they enslaved due to high costs and low output.
• In 1793, Eli Whitney revolutionized cotton production when he invented the cotton gin.
• American plantation owners began to trade the surplus cotton and developed international trade.
• By 1850, of the 3.2 million enslaved people in the country’s fifteen slave states, 1.8 million were producing cotton.
• By the time of the Civil War, South Carolina politician James Henry Hammond confidently proclaimed that the North could never threaten the South because “cotton is king.”

The Slave Economy

• Domestic Slave Trade
• Congress abolished foreign slave trade in 1808.
• Americans continued to smuggle slaves.
• As focus shifted from tobacco to cotton, tobacco farmers domestically traded their slaves to the Deep South.
• Economic Inequality
• South was prospering due to cotton but there was wealth was unequally distributed.
• Poor white men and rich white men united together over ‘white supremacy’ and from fears of ‘slave uprisings’

Life For Enslaved People

• In the early 19th century, most enslaved men and women worked on large agricultural plantations as house servants or field hands.
• Life for enslaved men and women was brutal; they were subject to repression, harsh punishments, and strict racial policing.
• Enslaved people adopted a variety of mechanisms to cope with the degrading realities of life on the plantation. They resisted slavery through everyday acts, while also occasionally plotting larger-scale revolts.
• Slaves also performed acts of sabotage, such as breaking farm tools or purposely destroying crops. Sometimes they went so far as to injure, maim, or even kill themselves in order to escape the brutal reality of a life of forced servitude. Others simply fled the plantation, seeking to escape to freedom in the North.
• Enslaved men and women created their own unique religious culture in the US South, combining elements of Christianity and West African traditions and spiritual beliefs.

Abolitionism

• Abolitionism was a social reform effort to abolish slavery in the United States. It started in the mid-eighteenth century and lasted until 1865, when slavery was officially outlawed after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
• The movement evolved from religious roots to become a political effort that at times erupted into violence.
• Though most abolitionists were white, devoutly religious men and women, some of the most powerful and influential members of the movement were African American women and men who escaped from bondage.
• In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which legally required Americans to return any African American who had escaped enslavement to his or her owner. It was a major victory for the slaveholding South.
• Abolition activist Harriet Beecher Stowe to pen the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which quickly became a bestseller and fueled the antislavery cause across the nation.

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The Compromise of 1850

• After the end of the Mexican-American war, the arguments erupted whether California was to be a slave state or free state.
• The Great Compromiser vs. The Great Nullifier
• Henry Clay, also known as the ‘Great Compromiser’, offered a series of resolutions to limit slavery.
• This angered John C. Calhoun, also known as the ‘Great Nullifier’ and asked for dual presidency – hinting at a disunion.
• The president, Zachary Taylor, who supported slavery decided upon a compromise known as the compromise of 1850.
• Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act which allowed federal money for slave bounty hunting.
• California to be a free state.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• The new western states were a really big part of increasing tension of slavery in the 1850s.
• In 1848, US-Mexico war resulted in a lot of territory for the US resulting in a divide whether to make this area free territory or slave territory.
• Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist who wrote a book called ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ which focused on slave auctions and how it did not respect the institution of family.
• It became the most read book of the 19^th century with a lot of mixed reactions.
• When Lincoln met Beecher, he said that “you’re the little lady that started this great war.”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin - Consequences

• The book helped to develop an opinion of the masses – either they were with slavery or they were against it.
• The international eyes were on America
• The fate of slavery had to be decided.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act created two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, within which the principle of popular sovereignty would apply, meaning that the states themselves would determine their policy on slavery.
• The Act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which drew the horizontal line of slavery across the West along the 36° 30' parallel. This reopened the question of slavery’s western expansion.
• Tensions between pro- and anti-slavery advocates erupted into violence.
• Radical abolitionists, like John Brown, attacked and murdered white southerners in protest. A pro-slavery US Senator, Preston Brooks, viciously beat abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate.
• The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act induced party realignment and violence, furthering the sectional divide that ultimately erupted in the Civil War.

Dred Scott vs. Sandford

• Dred Scott tried to buy his and his family’s freedom from the owner but the owner refused; this lead to him filing a civil lawsuit in court.
• The case became popular and it was to essentially decide the future of slavery in the country.
• The Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott was not a citizen of the US and also ruled the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional.
• Responses were mixed to this decision.
• Consequences:
• Northerners joined the Republican party which was anti-slavery.
• Case vindicated for Southerners.

Westward Expansion - Causes

1. Economic opportunities
• Farming
• Discovery of gold in California
• Railroad expansion to the West
2. Government support
• Pacific Railway Act (1862) – allowed railroad companies to complete a continental railroad
• Homestead Act (1862) – allowed 160 acres of land to anyone over the age of 21 who had not opposed the US.
3. Cultural ideology
1. Manifest Destiny – “God had provided the continent for the US to expand and it was our destiny to do so.”
2. White Man’s Burden
3. American Progress

Westward Expansion – American Progress

Westward Expansion - Effects

1. Sectional conflicts
1. Slave state vs. Free state
2. Civil War
2. Racial conflicts
• Attacks on Chinese communities
• Removal and attacks on Native Americans
• Chinese Exclusion Act

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Conflict between North and West

Summary – Causes of the Civil War

1. Westward Expansion (Free state vs. Slave state)
1. Missouri Compromise
2. Kansas-Nebraska Act
3. Dred Scott vs. Sandford
2. Different ideologies between North and South
3. Industrial North vs. Agricultural South
4. Class system in North vs. Aristocratic system in South
5. Issue of Slavery
• Uncle Tom
• Dred Scott Case
• Westward Expansion
• Abolitionism and anti-slave Northerners vs. rich Southern plantation owners

Summary – Perspectives of Civil War

• Religious
• Slavery immoral for North
• Economic
• States for poor Northern farmers vs. states for rich Southern farmers
• Political
• If too many free states, maybe one day they’ll abolish slavery completely in Congress..

The Civil War

Missouri Compromise (1820)

• Debate whether Missouri to be a slave state or a free state as it could result in imbalance of power.
• After months of debate, there was no result.
• In the end, a compromise was reached where a new state called Maine would be added which was to be a free state and Missouri was to be slave state.
• In this way, the balance continued between slave and free state with equal representation in Congress.
• However, the issue of slavery still loomed over America.

Political Battles from 1800 to 1860

• Missouri Compromise (1820)
• The Compromise of 1850
• Uncle Tom vs. Anti-Tom novels
• The Whigs disintegrate and reintegrate as Republicans with Abraham Lincoln as their new candidate.
• Abraham Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery because of moral and historical reasons:
• Abolitionism
• His father had to move because he couldn’t get work
• Abraham Lincoln gets elected as the POTUS with enough electoral votes thrusting the US into a civil war. (election of 1860)

Start of the Civil War

• Lincoln gets elected which scares the deep Southern states that he might abolish slavery even though Lincoln’s inauguration speech was reconciliatory.
• 7 states secede and create the ‘Confederate States of America’ with a new constitution protecting slavery forever.
• They fired on Fort Sumter which was owned by the US.
• This led to Lincoln starting a war with the Confederate States of America. He asked for an army of 75,000 with a 90-day service period.
• Afterwards, 4 more Southern states seceded.

Civil War Leadership

Strategy of the Civil War

• First fight at Bull Run where 800 people die which was a victory for the Confederacy.
• South had better military leadership in the war but the North had more population and industrial support.
• The strategy of the South was to wait out the war because North had to come and capture the territory of the South.
• The strategy of the North was to squeeze the South economically by blocking the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi river – this was known as the Anaconda Plan.

Civil War Timeline

• The South does a better job in the first year of the war due to bad leadership of the North.
• The bloodiest part of the war took place at Antietam when the South decided to go on the offensive but lost. 4000 Americans died in one day.
• Lincoln asked the South to give up war and he would not abolish slavery as that was never his intention. The Southern states did not agree and kept fighting.
• Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation where he ended slavery officially in revolting states.
• The slaves interpreted this as a war against slavery.

Civil War Timeline

• The South brought the war again to the North so the North is distracted and the South can focus on harvesting its crops for supplies.
• The Battle of Gettysburg (1863) take place which the US manages to win officially. The South retreats.
• 50,000 casualties took place in Gettysburg.
• Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address with the theme that we must be dedicated to the war and our country.
• The war ended and the Southern states were not allowed to secede.
• Confederate spy, John Booth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln after the war in the hopes to reignite the confederate cause.

Takeaways From The Civil War

• End of slavery
• Union of states changes to a united nation
• The federal government got a lot more power after the war; bureaucracy was strengthened.
• Industrialization became the top concern resulting in the US becoming a top world power.
• Women representation in productive roles after the war.

Effects of Civil War on National Identity

• Democracy changed
• Citizenship changed
• Federal identity
• US in the world

Reconstruction

Reconstruction After The Civil War

• President Abraham Lincoln proposed constitutional amendments as he was unsure whether the POTUS had the power to free slaves.
• 13^th Amendment
• Slavery ended officially and constitution amended.
• However, Southern states tried to fight back with Black Codes.
• Congress passed the Civil Rights Act which said that African-American will have the same rights as white people.
• However, President Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act.

Reconstruction After The Civil War

• 14^th Amendment
• Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including former slaves—and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.”
• This gave Congress the power to pass the Civil Rights Act.
• Did not allow states to enforce any laws which suppressed civil rights.
• 15^th Amendment
• Granted African-Americans the right to vote.